Dual-Use Research and Publication Policies: A Comparison of Journals in Life Sciences and Artificial Intelligence

Dual-use research (DUR) describes research with potential benefits that could be misapplied for harm. Policy on DUR is often limited to life sciences research. However, recently, there have been demonstrations of how research with dual-use concerns may extend beyond the life sciences to artificial intelligence (AI). One method of ensuring that research with dual-use concerns is not misapplied for harm is by censoring scientific journal articles. Journals may have policy on managing article submissions with potential DUR concerns. This study compared the policies of life science and AI journals toward DUR.

Google Scholar Metrics and Scimago Journal and Country Rank were utilized to identify and select the top 20 publications in fields of life sciences and AI by specific metrics. The publicly accessible websites of each journal were searched to ascertain their publication policies regarding DUR. Journals and/or publishers were contacted if no policy was located.

From Google Scholar, 12/20 journals within the "Life Sciences & Earth Sciences" category had policies on DUR; from Scimago, 9/16 of the "Biochemistry, Genetics, and Molecular Biology" category had policies; and 8/19 of the "Immunology and Microbiology" category had policies. For AI journals, 2/13 journals from Google Scholar had policies; 4/15 journals from Scimago had policies.

More journals in the life sciences have extant policies on how to handle article submissions with DUR concerns. Very few AI journals have policies.